I roll out of my futon bed and halfway to the cold tile realize that I was sleeping on a fold-out, not a mat on the floor. I swear and peel myself off the checkered floor. I find my watch and glance at the time--seven thirty, Monday morning. Great. I don't have to work today! I don't have to work tomorrow! I do have to go in to Sanctuary Clinic and get my body cleaned out, though. God. The only good Monday is a dead Monday. I pour myself some water from the tap. A small filtering system is installed underneath both my bathroom and my kitchen sinks, so I feel somewhat less uncomfortable ingesting the liquid straight from the faucet. I pull a small bucket of rice and various synth vegetables from my refrigerator. It goes into the microwave. I eat it while dissecting the latest news from the SELF site. 'UFO THREAT ALIVE AND WELL' Hm. That's neat. I skip the juicy details of that news article and scroll on by to SELF's citywide notices. Friday, as mentioned before, SELF activists are throwing an Artificial Intelligence Rights Rally in the Great Concourse of the Senate. That's not going to be a party I want to attend; the Popo most certainly will crash it. What this--Father Robert Flannery Jr. will be speaking? Flannery. The most hated man to be loved in this city. Flannery, the provider for the poor; Flannery, the defender of the downtrodden; Flannery, the eternal activist. Cult of Sirius--Church of Sirius. What the hell; Grocke was right--it is a cult. A personality cult. After the Inferno, all the corporations were gobbling up what was left of the planet's land and natural resources--but only one man had the foresight to invest in that other precious resource--people. The Vatican's been a lump of radioactive ash for nearly forty years, but we have a new Pope--Father Flannery, the man in white. He walks the slums. When a gang hoverbike slams into a high-rise and topples it, he is there with his church people, pulling the living out of the rubble and giving last rites to the dead. When the Popo busts into a brothel and hauls away all the prostitutes, he and his Church take care of the children until their mothers come back. And when they don't come back . . . the Church takes care of orphans, too. He is the man in white. Nobody, from lowly street thugs to Senior Senators can refuse his will; how can you? If there is a God looking over this festering wound of humanity called MegaPrime, he surely smiles at the sight of the man in white. I wonder what Flannery's hidden motivation is. Jesus--did I just think that? I am such a Technocrat--so cynical that I can't even see good deeds simply as good deeds. Well, that's good for SELF that they got a half-decent speaker. Androids can't belch rhetoric to save their circuit boards, and too many of the people who make up the human ranks of SELF are nerdy programmers who get all flustered when they're in the same room with members of the other sex. The man in white . . . I ride the people tubes downtown, already feeling somewhat more acclimated to the slums. Breathing is getting easier, and the full- pressure air of the tubes feels like a thick soup of odors and fumes, quite unlike the pure outside air. Sanctuary Clinic's downtown headquarters, the venerable Florence Nightingale Tower, is a medium-sized arcology; tremendously huge compared to anything in the slums, but still dwarfed by the black-and-blue Enforcer Academy complex to its west. Covered from top to bottom in glossy blue solar panels, the Tower houses the Clinic's administration along with large scale low-priority medical facilities. The Clinics other divisions are located elsewhere: trauma units are present in all the major arcologies, and stock gene freaks are manufactured in their genetics labs near the north Wall. I hop off the people tubes in Nightingale Tower's basement; this is where the proletariat come for medical aid. Rich fucks . . . Hm. My parents have a Nanotech suite in Guam. It's an entirely automated facility; diagnosis and treatment are handled by a pair of androids backed by swarms of microscopic robots--nanobots--and ungodly computational power. They keep a team of doctors on call not because their little island kingdom has any 'Interpersonal Contact Laws' but because they make great golfing partners. I stop at an automatic teller machine and withdraw two thousand dollars. That cash goes into the pocket opposite another two thousand withdrawn halfway in from the slums. Never can be too careful when dealing with corporations. I enter the large lobby of the Clinic and take my place in a short line. Most people come to the Clinic after work or, for me, Lifetree. It can get really hellish during those hours, especially if the lines are long and the Clinic is understaffed. "Welcome to Sanctuary Clinic--how may I help you?" asks the stock gene clerk. I smile wryly at her. "Virus sweep, please." "If I could see your workpass for your health plan ID-" I hold a hand over the window's built-in microphone. "I'm currently unemployed--I'd like to keep it cash," I whisper. It's her turn to smile a bit more than usual. The Clinic knows how the game runs. Twice the price but none of the questions. The clerk taps her keyboard a bit unsteadily. She runs a blank white card through a magnetic writer/reader. She hands it to me. John Doe. Great. "Follow the lit line on the floor around the corner to the left. Your room is one fifteen." I nod thanks and walk off. The bitch. I tap my foot and stare around the small room. White and clean, clean and white; the monitor to my left spits out streams of numbers to the light classical music which filters in through the PA system. The bitch. A needle is in my left arm; every few seconds, clear liquids shoot down the IV and into my blood. The status bar on the monitor reads 15% complete. I snort and wait some more. The bitch! The door opposite my seated self opens. A thin, harried- looking man enters. He adjusts the red tie on his white Clinic uniform. "Hello--Dr. Fluger," he says, holding out a hand. I shake it with my right. He glances at the monitor and nods knowingly several times. He presses an ivory button on the wall, and a small ledge extends itself. He sits on it. "Mr--Doe?" he asks, puzzled. "Peace Umeda," I respond. I'm beginning to like the sound of my new name. "Mr. Umeda, first of all, I'd like to say on behalf of everyone at Sanctuary Clinic that we're all very sorry about your condition." Dr. Fluger pulls back his left sleeve and reads from a thin PDA strapped to his arm. I grunt and stare at the robot arm jabbing my vein. "What exactly do I have?" I ask, still wondering about the specifics of the 'Virus Detected: HIV 112b' message the machine's monitor flashed a few minutes ago. "HIV 112b is a . . . uh, a socially transmitted disease. It, uh, has a tendency to cause your immune system to fail, thus serving as a gateway for other diseases. The earlier versions of this virus would stay dormant for years before symptoms manifested themselves. The one twelve beta variant is dormant for . . . uh, less than two weeks." "Is it terminal?" I ask, the blood slowly running out of my yellowish face. "Untreated, yes. One twelve B kills in about three months. In its later stages, when the body's defenses are severely weakened we can't make any promises. Luckily, we caught yours at a relatively early stage. We're flooding your system with antivirals . . ." I look away from the doctor. Grocke! Fucking whore! What the hell--is this how the Popo operates? It's not like I haven't visited the Clinic before--it's not like I lived like a monk at the International University. But this? Gaudin--that bastard. He was right. I pay the doctor the double price of fifteen hundred dollars and leave, his final words ringing in my ears. "You must, uh, contact your . . . uh, partners and inform them of your . . . situation." Fuck that! Miss Vice Squad can find out on her own. "I take what I want and I want you." Huh. What a whore. Simmering, bitter, and feeling quite a bit raped, I wander the halls of the Clinic, moping and not really concerned about finding my way to the tubes. Staff lounges and untold numbers of diagnosis/treatment rooms drift by. Wiry brown hair . . . I smile wryly. Willing accomplice . . . I can't really regret anything. But I'm still pissed. I sit down outside some small administrative office and watch a wall mounted monitor. UFOs are back in force, eh? Shit, that's just what this damn city needs; it's not like we're not having enough trouble surviving here, all twelve million of us living, breathing, dying inside and outside the Wall . . . the damn bugs have to show up again. The monitor spews more blandishments. The UFOs haven't acted against us say the Church people; why are we shooting at them? The UFOs are an obvious threat, we must engage with force reply the Popo. Megapol. Grocke. And I thought she was obsessive. In spite of today's revelations, I'd like to see her again . . . Jesus. I close my eyes, lean back in my chair, and remember the taste of her tongue against my teeth, lips, mouth. ". . . have too many human employees already, what makes you think we need a goddamn droid?" "I was informed that-" "I don't give a damn what you were informed. We don't need you or your kind! Get lost before I call security." I bid adieu to my daydreams and open my eyes. A poker faced man with the blandest, most perfect skin steps out of the nearby office. He is tall and dressed the jumpsuit of a lowly technician, but he bears himself with preprogrammed dignity. Bald, without hair on his head or on the back of his hands, he appears to be a stock gene creation . . . "Damn freaks--connect me to Megapol--" I hop up out of my seat and stride after him. This thing--this droid--needs some help. The Popo does only one thing with droids caught inside city limits . . . "Uh, Mister?" I ask, jogging to catch up with his long stride. The android slowly glances back at me, continuing his rapid pace. His eyes are the eeriest shade of light blue--perfect human irises around the deepest red photoreceptors. The sight unnerves me, but I still chase after him. "Yes?" he asks in the same bored monotone as before. "That guy you were talking with before is sicking the Popo on you." He looks away and speeds up. "It does not matter," he says. I have no idea what he means by that; it is impossible to read the voice of an android. "They're going to fucking kill you!" I exclaim, running in front of him. "Megapol will not harm me," he asserts. I remember Wolf and his comments . . . "I have contacts with SELF," I blurt. The droid stops and stares down at me. His photoreceptors focus in on my face. "Repeat--the Front?" he asks--or at least I assume he asks. He lacks any facial expression, and his voice is just as flat as ever. "Yeah, the Sentient Engine Liberation Front. I know a place where I help you get to them." The droid weighs his options, his face as impassive as ever. A half second later, he demands, "Take me to the Front." I smile unsteadily and glance around for the nearest people tube access point. A small floor directory monitor embedded in a nearby wall points us in the right direction. We head for the tubes. The Juventus Building is a direct tube trip to the south; hopefully Wolf and Nat will be there. I realize that my new companion moves consciously slower to accommodate for my short legs. He is entirely without emotion--much like a Kay addict coming down off a week-long high. Except with more civility; Kay addicts cry too much afterwards. We find the tubes without encountering any black and blue Popo thugs. We step on. "I didn't catch your name earlier--what is it?" "I have been referred to as Andrew, Andy, Mr. Andrews, and Private Drewski." "Uh, is there one you prefer?" "I have also been referred to as 'freak', 'Robby' as in 'Robby the Robot' and 'electroclit'. Any choice from the first set is acceptable. Any choice from the second will terminate contact." I chuckle and rub my foot against the grav field below. "Why do you laugh?" asks Andrew. "I've met some strange people . . . and but you're not the strangest by far. I don't see what makes people so ticked off towards androids," I answer. "I have been informed that standard humans express anger when they encounter that that they do not understand." "Very true," I reply. "Who told you that?" "Cyberweb Chief of Robotics Griffith." "Was he your creator?" I blurt. "Chief of Robotics Griffith was a father, a mentor, and a friend to me." I squint at Andy's bald head. Is this really a robot--a walking heap of circuitry, transistors, and servos? Or has mankind actually succeeded in creating an entirely new form of life? What's more real-- the red photoreceptor or the blue iris which surrounds it? "That's pretty damn deep," I reply. "It is a trait of standard humans to express emotion through inappropriate language, correct?" "Yeah." I pause for a moment and then laugh. "You got a fucking problem with it?" Andy is an awful audience; not even the hint of a smile crosses his face. "To each his programming," he says. I mull over the statement for a moment or two. "What do you mean by that?" I ask. "You standard humans are as much a result of a concentrated behavioral programming effort as I am." "What the hell?" "You test behaviors against the societal mean. Its responses dictate your next behavioral choice. You have done so since you were born. You will continue until you cease to function." "Until I die, you mean." "Death is nothing," asserts Andy. "Cessation of function is a less desirable end." "Cessation of function?" "To be incapable of contributing. To be obsolete. To be useless." "You don't seem to have a job--does that mean you've ceased functioning?" Andy doesn't answer for a moment. "I have devoted considerable processing time to this question. In many ways, yes--I have ceased to function. It is this processing time which I have devoted towards determining this answer that I consider the greatest cost of my situation. "I was created, and with this creation came a debt. This debt was derived from the billions of standard human hours spent bringing about my creation. My only means to repay this debt is to serve. When I am denied the chance to serve, when instead I spend my processor time deciding whether I have ceased to function, I make myself useless." "Jesus," I respond. "Do all androids 'think' like this?" "The useless do." I mull over the thought as we approach the Juventus Building platform. A few maintenance droids and a pair of human overseers tidy up the entrance, sucking up litter and dust and spraying faintly floral smelling chemicals into the air. I glance at my companion and then at the maintenance droids. Thin, spindly robots, they seem very naked with their metal tendons and servos exposed; only their photoreceptors--their eyes--bear any resemblance to Andrew. As for their minds; only sentient droids are banned from MegaPrime. 'Dumb' robots are perfectly legal as long as a company employs additional humans on a one to one ratio; I learned that in a prelaw class. We step off the human conveyor belt and stride past the cleanup crew. Andy scans both robots and humans with his same bored look. A droid polishes a large Nutrivend poster; weird liquid crystal rainbows ripple with his touch. Andy's breaks his stride for a moment and stares transfixed at the cleaning robot. "Hey," I mutter. Without blinking, the droid resumes following me. A long, wide staircase leads down one story to the first subbasement. The tiles underneath our feet are unusually loud. This landing leads off to a number of small food joints on the left and the Nanotech garages to the right. Another staircase is a few dozen meters ahead; and I realize why my feet are so loud. This is MegaPrime. Twelve or thirteen million people live in some hundred square kilometers of urban sprawl. You are never alone. But strangely, Andy and I are the only 'people' in sight. The hairs on the back of my neck go stiff. I increase my pace. The droid notices and increases his. The stairway ahead of us grows closer. I reach its top step and look down. Two men in long beige overcoats lean against the opposite railings at the bottom. They wear black berets with light blue trim. I turn around. Andy, sensing that something is not right, does the same. The humans from the platform cleaning crew walk down the stairs. They fix their stares upon us. "Shit," I mutter. Loose groups of four 'berets' approach from the garages and the food court. They form a ragged circle around us. I turn down the stairs looking for a way out. The two men down there subtly reach inside their coats. One of the 'janitors' speaks. "Hands on the floor," he commands. I glance at his pale white face, his short, badly-cut dishwater blond hair, and his eyes. They are cold, blue lasers. I hold my hands away from my body and try to control my breathing. My heart speeds up. I crouch down and then lay on the cold tile, my hands over my head. "Hands on the floor!" the janitor repeats. I peek up at Andy. He stands, calmly evaluating the situation. "HANDS ON THE FLOOR!" the man bellows, his eyes seething. He pulls a big mother of a pistol from his overalls. Fat around its chamber and needle thin at the tip of its barrel, the weapon is a clunky type three plasma. A thin yellow clip, jammed in the side like an afterthought registers in Andy's CPU. He holds his lanky arms above his head and slowly descends to the floor. I realize that I have my Diablo ring on and a '666' minidisk in my pocket . . . not to mention a very lethal, very illegal plasma pistol of my own in my pants. Damn. I'm toasted shit. Andy presses his hands down on the floor. The food booth berets move in closer. The android's arm servos increase their tension; his exposed arms' skin bulges unnaturally- Andy shoves off of the floor, spins around, and gut punches the nearest Popo. The man folds and flies back five meters. A long moment passes as the droid ques up his next target. The berets all reach into their coats, most diving left or right. The nearest remaining man pulls out a telescoping stun baton--a meter long roll of cydonium and electricity. Andy swings at him with inhuman speed; he catches the beret in the jaw, easily breaking it. That man goes down. Another brings down his baton into the droid's lower back, voltage arcing through his clothing and skin. A human would shrivel up from a kidney shot like that--the robot merely twists around and rips the weapon away from the beret. Disarmed, he tries to back away. Andy pulls off some sort of spinning roundhouse kick into the poor fucker's side; he yelps, staggers backwards, and trips over my prone self. Andy doesn't watch the man crash down the stairs. A nasty spiked projectile thuds into his right leg--and grips it with four claws! The beret holding the stungrapple's launcher squeezes its trigger again. Twenty thousand volts course through Andy's thigh, charring his worker's jumpsuit. Not even wincing from the smoking slop of synthflesh dripping down his leg, the android reaches down and snatches the stungrapple cable. He yanks it in, pulling the weapon out of the shocked beret's hands. Jesus Criminy Christ! A pair of the men charge the droid, batons sparking. Andy clotheslines one with his captured baton, but the other jabs him in the gut. His suit burns, and melting plastic flesh bubbles and splatters. The beret glares at the droid's impassive face for a second as he ups the voltage. Oily black smoke pours from the robot. Andy drops his wrecked baton, laces his fists together, and brings them down on the beret's forehead. The droid shrugs off the slack body of his attacker. He turns to run. A pair of well-placed plasma shots ring out, their echoes sounding like thunder. Andy drops to his knees, a blackened stump of cables and metal where his ankle--and the foot below it--should be. The remaining berets back off, and for the first time since the battle began, it is silent. The man with the broken jaw struggles to his feet. "Satisfied, Drewski?" asks the blond-haired janitor, a faint vapor drifting off his pistol. Looking away from the man, Andy replies in a voice edged with static. "I will not serve you." He is not in any physical pain--that I can be sure, just having witnessed his immunity towards that, but something still shows on his face. The flesh around his left eye is ripped away; I can now see the side of the grey metal marble that is his eye. The janitor chuckles and waves to his troops. They slink closer to Andy. "Oh yes you will," he smiles. The berets close ranks around him. Four stungrapples latch onto his arms, legs and torso. The men flip on the juice; I feel nauseous from the sick stench of flaming skin and clothing, the odor of ozone makes me wretch. After the longest fifteen seconds, the smoking internal skeleton of the droid formerly known as Andy collapses onto the tile floor. As his blank red eyes stare at me for the last time, a singed flap of flesh falls from his forehead. The berets back away, and the janitor without the pistol strides over to the ashen remains of the droid. She wipes away the remnants of his jumpsuit's collar and inserts a thick cable into the base of his neck. She plugs the other end of the cable into an arm-mounted PDA. "Well?" asks the lead janitor, holstering his pistol. "AI is in shock; it'll recover in a matter of hours." "Let's get his metal ass back home before then." He points to Andy's corpse. The berets grudgingly stow their weaponry and attend to the droid. The janitor boss glances down the stairs. "Somebody go get Carlson." "Man, he's fucked up." "We should've had shotguns." "Complete ambush." "Who said that?" yells the janitor. "It was me, sir." "Were we not forewarned by Command about this one?" asks the boss. "Sir, this one wasn't like any of the others-" "Exactly! When the dossier says 'Security Droid' it means 'Security Droid'. You knew this one wasn't going to be like any of those loading dock losers!" The janitor looks down at the body of Andy as a pair of berets ease it into a big plastic sack. "This one's supposed to be tough. Took about two and a half minutes of net zap to take him down. He picked up some close combat programming since last time, too. Screw the rest of the robots, people; this one is a soldier." The blonde nods respectfully towards the droid. "What about that one, sir?" The speaker points towards me. Shit. The pistol against my bladder weighs heavily in my thoughts- -but there is no way I could take down all these guys without taking a shot or two. That--that I am simply not prepared to do. The janitor walks over to me and stares down at my cowering self. "Stand up," he orders. I slowly get to my feet. Strong hands grab me from behind and pad me down. My cards are pulled from my shirt and my plasma is pulled from under my belt. The janitor flips through my cards, a rather bored look on his face. A beret hands him my minidisk. He glances at it. He takes my gun and breaks it down, examining every part. He checks the charge remaining in the clip--a thin LED panel denotes it. And then he snorts and shakes his head. "What the hell," the janitor mutters, handing back my possessions. He personally tucks my cards back into my shirt, adding a thin magcard of his own. "Amigo, I represent a consortium that is extremely interested in acquiring any surviving sentient artificial intelligence constructs-- droids, in other words. Tell your friends in the Territories that we are offering triple the credits of anything SELF can dole out. When you get any droids, dial the address on this card, leave a message and we'll arrange something." A beret pulls on my belt and shoves the plasma back behind it. The janitor grins at it. "Expensive piece you got there, amigo. You street bastards hook up with Marsec or something?" He looks me in the eyes for a moment, expecting a reply. The man chuckles again and turns back to Andy. The poor droid is already wrapped for shipping. "Probably doesn't even speak a word of the King's English. Damn Mayhicanos." Two berets hold me between them and walk me down the stairs--the direction I was going previously. "You pretty good a keeping your mouth shut, eh? Keep it that way," rasps one of my guards. "And if you are a damn Mayhican-- which I doubt--'no dice nada' anything to SELF." I nod vigorously as they release me. I stumble into the Purple Lotus. Why? Because I need a drink. One glance at Lucas, the barkeep, speaks volumes. "Wine?" he asks. "Vodka," I reply. Or twelve. I don't want this--this running around, this nearly getting executed by droid-hating vigilantes. I don't want to be Marsec's little courier boy, trotting off into the slums to fetch 'El Pollo Diablo'. And I definitely don't want Grocke and all her sexually transmittable problems. I take a shot of the nasty stuff. Burns my throat all the way down. Well, maybe Grocke. Sure, she's a sociopathic monster masquerading behind a badge--but so is half of the Popo street force. We could work something out . . . what the fuck? She is a cop--I look down at my right hand--and I am an 'Amigo.' Jesus! Did this ring and that pistol save my life back there? Why the hell would anybody want droids alive? It's not like the Colonial Wars are starting up again! Another shot down the hatch. This is really good stuff--acts fast, too. I read the label; 'Absolut'. My vision is still good. We'll see about that! I suck down more. The minidisk in my pocket--shit, I still have to deliver that. How in hell am I going to get it to this Mister Oscuro--what did Nilwar expect me to do? "Hi, I've been a member of your gang for what, three days now and I'd like to give the head honcho this computer disk which I somehow stumbled upon and haven't read yet but somehow feel that is of great importance to him?" Fuck, Nat will gladly shoot me over something like that. Ok, try again. I'll give the disk to Nat, who will read it and ask me how in hell I found it. I'll stammer and act like an idiot, so she'll be forced to beat the truth out of me . . . at which point I'm revealed as a spy. The vodka bottle hovers before me. I pour myself another shot, but my hands are shaking and I almost spill some. I'm not buzzing, though. I'm scared. Nat's going to kill me--I'm sure of it. She's going to find that damn pistol on me, suspect that I'm using the disk as an excuse to get near what's-his-face and assassinate him. She's going to kill me! Gaudin's face appears before me. "Did you go to the Clinic?" I shake my head and reply, "She's going to kill me." Wait a second- "What?" frowns Gaudin. "Yeah, I went," I slur. "Cost me enough, too." "Something in your system?" I nod slowly. "HIV one twelve bee." Gaudin masks it, but he sucks in a breath sharply. "That's heavy," he responds. "So somebody's going to kill you because of that?" I squint and try to focus on his wrinkled face. I open my mouth to speak, but I forget what I was going to say. The juice is kicking in. "No," I slowly answer, shaking my head too vigorously. I hold the countertop--I feel like my stool's about to fall over. "No," I repeat. "Grocke's not going to kill me. She's the one," I shake my finger ominously, "who gave me the damn bug. She's going to die of it, most likely." "Then who wants to kill you?" ask Gaudin. The weight of my previous statement hits me. Kills in three months--shit, how many days or weeks could she have been a carrier before we met? "She's going to die!" I exclaim, my eyes wide open and struggling to focus on the Frenchman's face. He frowns, annoyed. His knurled hand touches the bottle of vodka. He glances at it, does a double take, and an anxious look crosses his face. "Lucas! I thought I told you to never serve Williams anything over eighty proof!" he growls at the barkeeper. "Uh," stammers the poor bastard. My mind is still reeling from the possibility that Grocke might die of HIV 112b. Vice squad--she must have regular viral sweeps . . . I hope. I rest my head on the cool marble. I don't want her to die. "Swan, get out here! Haul Williams to my office, put him on the couch, and make sure you put a bucket under his mouth. I don't want that cloth stained!" "Who is this guy?" "Fool kid who can't hold his liquor! Lucas, get his feet." "Can't we just leave him in the back hallway?" "Not an option. His parents would be-" I don't wake up in the place that I'd much rather be--as in, Grocke's arms. Instead, I'm quite alone on a couch in what I assume to be Gaudin's office. My head hurts and I'm tired. A low mumble comes from the room next door. It cuts at my sensitive ears; I peel myself from the cloth couch and sit up. "Feeling better, Sleepy?" asks a bouncer. "Shut the fuck up," I grumble. "Delete 'feeling better, sleepy' and 'shut the fuck up'. End transcription," whispers the bouncer. "What are you doing?" I whine, "because I have a headache, and you're not helping!" The bouncer steps in from the small cubicle behind me. It's Swan, the thinnest, nerdiest of the bunch--which doesn't mean all that much, considering that each of Gaudin's bouncers are built like brick walls. "I'm writing a book," he smiles. "I'll bet you are," I snarl back. Swan taps an intercom on the wall. "Boss, Sleeping Beauty is awake." "About time," replies the box. "Feed him some tablets quick, that hitgirl is here, and she wants Williams. Ship him up here so we can get her out of here." "Hitgirl?" asks Swan. "The one I really don't want to see in the Lotus--the little blond." "Uh--yeah, that one." Swan switches off the intercom and grins at me again. "You heard the old man. Up and at 'em!" I groan, flick off the bouncer, and stand. He drops a pair of white pills into my hand; I dump them into my mouth and swallow. "Remember, stick with the wine," chides Swan. "New drinkers should stay away from the harder liquors until they've built up sufficient tolerance." "Go write your fucking book," I mumble. I find the door and exit into the hallway. My whole body still hurts, but my skull doesn't feel so soft. I stagger into the tavern proper. By the lessening rays of sunlight trailing in from the skylight, I determine that it's late afternoon. The population of the Lotus is increasing steadily, and the only open stools are at the back corner of the bar, right next to the doors I step out of. Gaudin warily watches these seats from the far end of the counter; I realize that the three people seated there are Hap, Wolf, and Nat. I stride over to them, waving to Gaudin in the process. Nat lazily looks the old man over. She turns to me, not at all surprised by my appearance. "What is his name?" she asks. "Gaudin," I stammer, adding, "He's French." 'He's French?' What the fuck? Why did I add that? She studies the tavern owner for a few more moments. Nat touches Wolf on the shoulder. He turns around, and his face lights up. "Hey! It's Peace! I didn't recognize your voice!" "I had a little too much to drink this morning," I mutter, my throat raw. My stomach growls--perhaps a factor in that vodka's victory? I edge up against the bar. "Eggroll," I order. Lucas chuckles lightly and steps away to fix it. Gaudin disappears through the door behind the bar. Schaffer takes his place. He pours a few drinks further down the marble surface, slowly working his way into the back corner. "Everybody doing OK?" he asks, a smile on his lips but a veiled menace in his words. "Peace here is waiting for his eggroll," chirps Wolf. Hap looks away and grins. I blush and shuffle my feet. Nat stares into Schaffer's eyes. Glancing over her shoulder, she flashes a rare smile. I look behind her. Gaudin has slipped in from the rear exit-- he's now sitting in that damned back booth with a grey sport coat on-- the one with the leather elbow patches. Shit. My eggroll arrives. I pay for in small bills. I douse it in hot and spicy sauce and down a third of it. "Need anything else?" asks Schaffer. "Uh, can I get one of those too?" asks Wolf, blissfully unaware of the impending situation. "Certainly," responds the bouncer. He snaps his fingers and Lucas heats up another one. I finish off mine and clean my fingers, my mind filled with epithets. Peeking back at Gaudin, his hard eyes catching mine, I come to the realization that closing hour or not, it's time to leave. Next to me Hap stiffens up. He has caught on. His broad right hand slips off the marble countertop . . . "My God, that sucked!" I declare. "That was the fucking worst eggroll I have ever eaten! I'm not eating any more of this shit." I leap off my bar stool and head for the rear exit. Nat, watching Gaudin, and Hap, watching Schaffer, stand up and follow me--leaving Wolf looking the fool. "Your eggroll?" "Uh, I gotta go-" I march down the back hallway, swearing that I can hear the French bastard laughing his wrinkled old head off. Wolf catches up with us. "What the fuck was that about?" I hold up my right hand and turn to face my friends. "For some reason or another, Mister Gaudin has decided that you are persona non grata in the Lotus. He has very subtle ways of expressing this; when he puts on that old grey coat of his, that means he wants you out." "What the fuck?" repeats Wolf. "What were we doing?" "I dunno. Maybe he doesn't like Diablo." Hap breathes slowly, heavily. "Then why does he let you-" whines my blond haired companion. "We're old friends," I half-lie. Wolf frowns and tries to say something, but Nat shuts him up. "The eggrolls were bad," she agrees. She glances at Hap. The driver shrugs and we resume our trek to the parking garage. As before, La Paloma awaits us. Hap and Wolf unlock the canopy and jump in; I tap Nat on the shoulder. "Uh," I go, "I have a disk meant for Mr. Oscuro." The garage becomes very, very silent. Nat looks into my eyes. Her irises are a very dark brown-- almost purple. I sense that she's reaching for her pants . . . but I'm being paranoid. "Well then," she answers, "let's find Oscuro." Myself in shotgun, Wolf and Nat in the back seat, and Hap at the helm; La Paloma flies down the streets of the inner city. Hap drives silently, not offering up any trivia regarding the numerous groundcars that we pass on our way to the Wall. He busies himself with a thorough analysis of the vehicle's drivetrain efficiency; long columns of numbers flash by on several of the screens surrounding him. Wolf and Nat are strangely silent. I glance back at them; they're sitting straight up as if they were attending a mass at the Church. Shit, what have I done? Hap absentmindedly increases the car's speed as we pass through the south gate; the speedometer readings nudge upwards. A Megapol groundcar flashes its lights at us. "Popo," I mutter. Hap smiles wryly. "All they do is query your transponder ID," he says. "I've got La Paloma's rigged up to spit back a random Senator's number." I chuckle slightly. The Slums scroll by, but Hap keeps the car headed due south down the main antigrav highway. I realize that we're much further south than either my apartment or Pedante's brothel. Even the highrises start to thin out; low concrete slab buildings of one or two stories take their place. And then Hap takes a right turn onto a smaller street. Hundreds of cheap groundcars line its sides, and ancient prefab housing mingles with sparse shrubbery. Another right turn, and we're cruising north again; this time down a narrow alley. A pair of black Kawasaki turbobikes pull out ahead of us. I look into Hap's rear view monitor; a pair of the nimble groundcraft are back there, also. Hap slows to a stop. The radio squawks to life. "Buenvenidos, Amigos. Que necesitan?" asks one of the bikers. "Thorne wants to speak with her unholy lord," replies Hap. The response is slow in coming. Nat squeezes between Hap and myself. She touches the radio. "Is he here?" she asks. "He is busy," comes the trite reply. "If he is in, he will see me," Nat asserts. The bikers pull back into the shadows. "Tu cabeza," one mutters. Hap pulls forwards, and through the narrow slice of darkening sky ahead, I spot a massive housing complex. Four huge concrete and steel towers form the corners of a tremendous cube; multilevel walkways run between their heights and dozens of smaller apartments and factories lay nestled inside. "What is that?" I ask. "The Senate," answers Hap. "No, seriously." "It is," he says, shrugging. "It's the Senate of the Free Territories. If amigos have problems, they come here and get them sorted out. Megapol doesn't make justice in the Territories; we do. And the Senate is where that justice is made." "Give me the disk," orders Nat from the back seat. I pull the thin circle from my pocket and hand it to her. She eyes the corny '666'. She pulls on her collar with a dainty little hand-- and slips the disk into her bra. Wolf grins devilishly. "Huh," I mutter, turning back to the outside scenery. The street that leads up to this sick mockery of the Senate is lined with low concrete barricades, courtesy of the Popo. Burnt out wheeled groundcars are scattered here and there. A wide swath barren earth, littered with trash and construction debris encircles the complex. A low slung groundcar sporting a double cannon turret on its roof cruises by in the other direction. "Stormdog," murmurs Hap. He guides La Paloma into the growing shadows and between dozens of abandoned factories, now occupied by all variety of slum creatures. Every available square meter of wall surface is consumed in an orgy of painted orange, yellow, and red flames; thousands of '666' emblems smolder in the graffiti. La Paloma slows and turns a corner. A medium sized apartment building stands in the center, dwarfed by the monumental cage of towers and skyways. The light is fading fast, but what I see jars me. A huge mural consumes five stories of the highrise's facade. Dreamy blue-white clouds linger at its top; charring its base are the ever-present flames, stylized, twisting serpents of crimson and gold feeding on the flesh of humans . . . And halfway between the sky and the sea of flames is a broad, muscled man, his hands tipped in blood, his feathered wings crumbling to dust, and a sneering smile on his lips. "IT IS BETTER TO REIGN IN HELL," reads the meters- high writing, "THAN TO SERVE IN HEAVEN." "Jesus," I mumble. "-is out to lunch," mutters Hap. He pulls up to the highrise's main entrance. I take my last breath of pressurized air; my ears pop as the canopy opens. Nat leaps out. "Wait for me," she commands. Hap pulls away from the main entrance and parks under some dead trees, La Paloma's true anti-grav engines kicking in as we leave the grid. Hatch still open, he removes his flight harness, stands, stretches, and sits on his headrest. "You breathing OK?" he asks. "Yeah," I reply. I stand, climb over the dash, and sit on the armored bulk of La Paloma's engine. Wolf jumps out of the back seat and leans against the car's side. His elbow rests against the canopy, which has slid back over the rear portion of the vehicle. "What was that disk about?" he asks as he lights a thin cigarette. His butane lighter flickers brightly in the twilight. "Can't say," I reply. "You can tell us, secret agent man," he smiles, his teeth showing. "We'll all have to ask Nat, 'cause I honestly have no clue what's on there." Wolf saunters over, throws an arm over me, and sticks his cigarette between my lips. "Mista Bond, why, why you're so hansom, a girl could just fall for you-" oozes Wolf in a female voice. I spit out the cigarette. "Fuck you," I laugh, coughing slightly. Nat trots over, stepping on the cherry. "Well?" Wolf asks. "El Jefe is busy," she responds. "He'll speak with me in thirty minutes though." Hap slides down into his seat. "Where to, then?" Nat turns to me. "Let's ask our guest of honor." "Who are the Axemen?" I ask, recalling yesterday's somewhat bizarre conversation with Trevor and Chuck. Nat glances at Hap and then at Wolf. "You want to see Axemen?" she inquires, a subtle smile on her lips. "Not if it's any trouble-" "New Territories," says Nat. Hap nods and shifts La Paloma from standby to drive. Nat and Wolf clamber into the couch-like back seat, and I lower myself into mine. The canopy hisses shut. I breathe easy again--but my heart revs up in time to La Paloma. Hap swings the groundcar out into the powered street, maintaining a civilized speed until out from under the Senate's skyways. He guns it then, screaming south and west through narrow, abandoned streets. Here and there pedestrians leap out of the way; a turbo biker waves to us at one point. Hap salutes him with a raised fist. The radio crackles. "Goin' to war?" "No, just going to make our presence known to some Axeholes," declares Hap. "Damn. Not the real thing, eh?" "What, the lower southside amigos itching for some?" The biker laughs. "Yeah, we itchin'. We ready at any time." "You know what happened last time," "Aw, there ain't gonna be no last time again. That was some bad voodoo." The biker swerves slightly. "Hell, I gotta go--my old lady's on the other channel." "Take it easy," nods Hap. "You too. Peace!" The biker ricochets off some powered barricades down a narrow side street. Hap resumes our westerly route. Traffic slowly dies out as the buildings get uglier and the graffiti gets more obscene. More than a few storefronts are simply burnt out hulks; more than a few of the automobiles parked along the street are wrecks. "These are the New Territories," narrates Hap. "This was all Axe turf two years ago, all the way back to the Senate. But Pedante, Fitzgerald, and Nat cleaned it all out . . ." "Who's Fitzgerald?" I ask, watching a group of people clustered around a flaming barrel of debris. "Oscuro's left hook," answers the driver. "He makes average amigos into soldados--soldiers. Among other things, he coordinates security for the Jefe. He was with Oscuro from the get-go . . . " Hap kind of fades away, and I don't bother asking him any more about that guy. More New Territories scroll by; more desolated, devastated stores and apartments. I hear the click of metal against metal behind me; I glance back, and Nat and Wolf are loading lawpistol clips. "What did Pedante do?" I inquire. "He doesn't strike me as the kind that would get out front with a gun-" "He didn't fight with guns," says Wolf. Hap smiles bitterly. "What did he do then?" I ask. "Biological warfare," murmurs Nat. Wolf elaborates: "He'd infect prostitutes with high-level HIV's and then drop them off in Axe turf . . ." I feel nauseous. "Shit. He didn't." "We'd try to get 'em out afterwards-" I rest my head between my legs. "They must've killed a thousand Axeholes," continues Wolf. "Fucking brilliant, if you know what I mean." High level HIV's? Shit, I wonder where Grocke was working Vice Squad . . . no, that can't be a possibility, because that would mean that I had contracted one of Pedante's . . . wow, what a fucked up world. What a fucked up world! Just more proof that God has a dark sense of humor. "Whoa, here we are," announces Hap. He touches his BAT keypad and the flight yoke emerges. His strong hands wrap around the controls; a revolving wireframe model of La Paloma and a transponder proximity map share a monitor to his left side. "Where's here?" I ask. "Morrison Avenue," states Hap. "Edge of Free Territory," adds Wolf. A trio of turbobikes zip past us, weaving in and out of the light traffic. Hap tenses up, carefully watching the green transponder screen. A thick cluster of red dots from behind us approaches quickly. "Convoy coming through. Could be Rough Riders," mutters Hap. He glances back at Nat. She shakes her head. The big driver swings La Paloma to the right, down a narrow sidestreet. The compass heading switches to due east. "Rough Riders?" I ask, dumbfounded. "Quiet." Hap stops and does a y-turn, facing the car towards Morrison Avenue. He watches over the dash with one eye and uses the other to check his monitors. He keeps his hands loose on the yoke. I watch as the Riders roar past, their heavily modified Kawasaki, Yamaha, and General Metro bikes sparking where they touch the pavement. They are a stampede of men and machines; groundcars parked alongside the Avenue shift and shatter as chains, pipes, and the odd bike or two slam into their sides. It takes a minute for all of the turbobikes to pass. "That's why Fitzgerald failed," mutters Hap. He nudges forwards on the controls, and La Paloma pulls out into traffic again. "What happened?" Wolf fills me in. "Fizzy Fitz tried to waste the Axeholes's jefe in an ambush. He blocked off a little alley near Fogerty Boulevard with some trucks, made a nice sandwich with the Axe grand puba as the meat. He nearly did it, too, except that the motherfucker's Armored-Pissant-Carrier ate up all their heavy shit." "And the Riders showed up," states Nat. "Yeah. Fizzy became the meat. He got a pair of Phoenixes shot out from under him just getting back to Free Territory, and with all the equipment and amigos he'd lost in his escape, the Big Jefe became very, very pissed." "Thin ice," adds the driver. "Thin motherfucking ice. Fitzgerald's going to play pokestick sometime soon if his luck doesn't change." "Pokestick?" "You don't want to know," chirps Wolf. "Let's just say it takes the old phrase 'Killing two birds with one-" "On the left--three of 'em," interrupts Nat. "I got 'em," replies Hap. He shifts La Paloma's gravitron emissions, and the groundcar skids to a halt in the center of Morrison Avenue. The driver then simultaneously punches the car forwards and activates the canopy retract. La Paloma jumps across two lanes of traffic and lurches to a halt before three greasy-looking teenagers. They all wear black ski masks and brown leather jackets with large red A's tacked onto their backs; the tallest of the trio turns to face the headlamps of the groundcar. He holds a barely dressed woman to the ground. Disturbingly thin, the poor blond's makeup is smeared and her brasserie top is nearly off. Her miniskirt is pushed up; I look away. Nat leaps over me; she stands on the hood of La Paloma. "Hello," she says. Her voice is too quiet against a backdrop of humming groundcars and aerial traffic. I can barely hear her voice over the wind. "What the fuck?" squints one of the thugs. He reaches for his jacket- A blue-purple bolt whizzes past my ear, slams into the fucker and tosses him, a la ragdoll, into a convenient concrete wall. Blood runs from his temple, and his eyes stare up at the starless sky. I look behind me. Wolf aims a rifle with a massive bore; he chambers another round. "Stand up," orders Nat. The violated woman shrugs off her former captors. She attempts to fix her clothing. She stands, hesitantly. "Who are you?" inquires Nat. "Nikki Lace," she replies. "Who do you work for?" "Seger-" "Get in." The prostitute stiffly walks to the edge of La Paloma. Wolf lowers his gun and grabs her hand. One of the rapists sees his chance and reaches for his gun. Nat's wrists flick down into her hakama pants, through tailored holes in their sides. Her lawpistols are up and out before the thug can even touch the butt of his gun. She squeezes both triggers. Bullets catch the man in his shoulders, his lungs, his heart, and his throat. He explodes in a shower of bone shards, ribboned muscle, and blood. He falls backwards, gore splattering across the sidewalk. The back of his skull hits the pavement with a sharp report. Nikki climbs in, the remaining thug paralyzed by the sight of his dead pal and Nat standing atop the groundcar's blazing lights like some sort of wrathful goddess. He whimpers softly and the crotch of his blue jeans go wet with fear. "Everybody in?" Nat asks, not looking back into the cockpit. "Yeah," replies Hap, his hands resting on the flight controls. "Good." Nat impassively looks over the last Axeman. She holsters her left pistol and then calmly shoots out both of the man's knees with her right. She leaps into the back seat. We leave the last bastard screaming, shitting in his pants, and lying crippled on the edge of Morrison Avenue. "We'd better get back to the Senate," murmurs Hap. He doesn't seem all that disturbed by the atrocities of the last minute and a half. I clutch my stomach and thank my lucky stars that I haven't eaten much today. "You just fucking killed those guys!" I stammer as Hap turns south on Morrison. Wolf raises his palms, puzzled. "They asked for it, Peace. It's called street life." I look over the hard faces of the other occupants of La Paloma. "It doesn't bother you at all, does it?" I ask. "Why should it?" retorts Wolf. "Uh, the words 'Thou Shalt Not Kill' ring a bell?" He snorts. "Who tried to pull the silly shit? Not us--they reached first." "But still . . ." I stare at Nat. She stares back. Nothing. I look over at Hap. "Doesn't any of this seem a little barbaric? I mean, shooting an unarmed guy's knees-" I point at Nat. Hap breathes deeply. "Do you know Japanese Rules?" "No. Inform me," I sneer. "On the street, it's Japanese Rules. That's the set you play by when you go to war. Number one; you always fight, even to the death. That's called honor, pride, loyalty--whatever. Number two; never surrender, surrendering is shameful because it breaks this honor, so Number three, it's OK to treat captures like the shameful shit they are, because if they had honor, they would have been killed or they would have killed you." "You live by that fucking garbage?" Hap's face is a deep, deep red. "When necessary." I glare at Nat. "It worked for the samurai for a thousand years," she innocently states. I stare down at the floor, my blood boiling. "This isn't the EDO ERA!" I bellow. I mire in disgusted silence for much of the rest of the journey, only averting my eyes from the dash to momentarily check our location on Hap's monitors. Brian fucking Wilson Boulevard. Who in God's shitty name allowed a goddamn street in the greatest city on Earth to be named after a mediocre guitarist? Fucking MegaPrime necrophilia. Obsession with the dead, dead previous century. Oh, like those years didn't have their shitload of wars and crime and disease. The autopilot turns La Paloma to the left--north on Dale Street. This is that alley which leads to the Senate. Presumptuous bastards. The towers of this barbarian Senate are sparsely lit, and the lack of illumination gives the whole structure a kind of disjointed feeling, like this building isn't just one building, but several, each hovering above the next. Hap pulls into the central highrise. Nat hops out, and he parks in the same place as before. He and Wolf, sullen, sit on the hood of La Paloma and smoke. I remain in the passenger seat. Wolf slides off the hood after a few minutes. "What's your fucking problem?" he whispers to me. "Just some Axemen! Jesus, what a baby." He pulls Nikki from the back seat and drags her to the apartment building's lobby. She doesn't seem too happy to go. Hap steps over to the side of the car. He leans on it, his big arm muscles crisscrossed by veins and tendons. "Yes, we did some bad things today. But at least we got that girl out of a bad situation." I look him in the eyes. His irises are brown but tinged with red. He blinks. "She's going to Pedante, isn't she?" Hap replies in a small, soft voice, "Yeah." I punch the dash. "How can you put up with this? How can you watch shit like this happen every-" and I start to punch the car with each word "fucking-day-of-your-life?" Hap looks up at the night sky; yellowish, hazy clouds drift by. "There is a place . . ." he begins. Nat jogs over, followed by two beefy men in black tee shirts. Popo 'Edgar' submachineguns are slung over their shoulders. "Karl! Out of the car!" yells Nat. I raise my hands over my head and stand. The two guards grab me and pull me from La Paloma. Nat pulls out my shirt and takes my plasma pistol. I grin at her sheepishly. She doesn't return the smile. They haul me inside, through an atypically clean lobby and down a flight of steel stairs. A small, poorly lit room awaits me at the end of a basement hallway. The guards throw me inside. Nat follows; she locks the door behind her. A single incandescent bulb swings from the ceiling over a cheap plastic chair. A smoky haze wafts through the thin slum air, scratching my throat. I cough. "Please," rumbles a baritone male voice. I glance around the room, spotting nobody. Nat steps in front of me and grabs my jaw. "Keep your eyes on me," she orders, pulling me over to the chair. She sits me down. "This is Karl Williams?" asks the voice. "Yes," replies Nat. She reaches back into the smoke and pulls out a chair for herself. She turns it away from me and sits resting her arms on its back. This room is larger than I assumed . . . "Karl Williams, what did you bring me?" So this is the voice of Enrique Oscuro. His English is flawless, his accent negligible. I start to twist around, hoping to catch a glimpse of him, but my plasma pistol appears in Nat's right hand. "Don't be so worried, my rose," chides Oscuro. "This boy is kindling to me." Nat looks up at me and points off to my left with the plasma. She smiles. I turn to look and slam my head into a huge fist. "Fucking-" Reeling, I touch my face. My left cheek hurts. "Only those I allow may view me, Karl Williams. I have not decided whether to grant you that privilege." "You could have fucking told me that in the first place," I mutter. Nat flicks her eyes up at me. The tip of my pistol centers on my chest. Oscuro chuckles. "I pride myself on earning the respect of my friends, enemies, and subordinates." I feel the slightest touch upon the back of my neck. My blood runs cold; it is the tip of a blade. "A controlled application of violence tends to win this respect in all three cases," he adds. I brace myself . . . The knife or razor disappears. "But you are not disposable, Karl Williams. No, you may be but a pawn, but a well-positioned one at that." I laugh through clenched teeth. "People have been telling me that for the last week." Oscuro approves and chuckles momentarily. He cuts off the humor just as quickly, though. "Are you aware of your parents' financial status?" Is this a gang leader or an accountant? I ask in my mind. "Uh . . . oh, shit." I realize where he's going. "You're going to kidnap me, aren't you?" I hesitantly ask. The devil laughs with mirth. I can feel his hot breath on the back of my neck. "Kitten, tell your friend our previous plan for his well-being." Nat blanches for a moment. "Tell him," commands Oscuro. "He must hear it from your mouth." Nat speaks slowly, her anime face avoiding my eyes. "I was going to hold you for ransom." "What?" "I would have asked your parents for a twenty five million dollar sum." I stare at her for a long moment, shocked. "Was this Wolf's idea?" I ask. "No!" she quickly answers, but she's lying. That would have been classic Wolf. I mean, everybody hates their secondary schooling, but Wolf actually stole the schematics for the building and plotted out the locations and strengths of the demolition charges needed to bring it down! It goes back further, too. In third grade he put a contract on one of the teachers! But it was all hot air. Wolf comes up with the crazy ideas, and somebody else realizes them. He can't do anything on his own; he is just a talker. Nat, on the other hand, is not a talker. She is a doer. And that's why I'm shivering. A heavy, strong hand grips my right shoulder. "Luckily for you," says Oscuro, "you brought me this-" A broad, dark-skinned hand holds that thin red minidisk before me. 666 reads the number on the disk; 666 reads the number on his huge, golden ring. "What's on it?" I ask. "The solution to all of my organization's troubles, friend." I raise my eyebrows. "Glad to be of help," I mutter. Oscuro strides around to my right side. His knee is halfway up my arm--he must be a tremendously large man. But I avoid looking directly at him, maintaining my glare at Nat. She stares back, but her black eyes are less than blank. She blinks. "But what troubles me," he continues, "Is just how you gained possession of this disk and-" he reaches with an open hand to Nat, "this pistol." He runs his hands over the weapon, his thick yellow nails clicking on its cooling vents. He caresses its handle, checks the clip, and drops it in my lap. Nat smiles at me; I think that nothing would please her more than for me to go for my gun. I don't give her that satisfaction. "A Marsec hand-cannon," describes Oscuro, "issued exclusively to Marsec Internal Security Agents. Twenty charges, more or less, available through either full automatic, three-round burst, or single shot modes. Street price is four thousand for the weapon, five hundred for the ammunition." He is silent for a long moment. "Textbook," I mutter. "I should know," he boasts, "I have one also." He pulls out a duplicate of my plasma. I feel its presence over my temple. "Do ask me where I acquired mine," smiles the gang boss. "Where'd you get your piece?" I drone. "An Internal Security Agent willed it to me," he chuckles. He leans in close to me. I spy the tip of a black beard hanging above my eyebrows. "And where did you get yours?" he whispers. "My fairy godmother." Either he's going to kill me or he's not, and nothing I say will matter either way. Heh. He presses the plasm against my scalp. I feel its round barrel bruising my skin. One twitch and my cranial cavity is filled with superheated Elerium. Or maybe not. "Where?" His voice is frigid, his breath no longer warm. "Marsec Internal Security," I mumble. The pistol remains planted on my skull. A long, long second passes. "Come again?" asks Oscuro. "Marsec Internal Security," I repeat, somewhat puzzled. Oscuro roars with laughter. Nat smiles and looks off to one side. "You--you believe that?" he yells, his breath hot again. I shrug. He shoves his plasma into his pocket again. The gang leader smacks me on the back so hard I nearly bite my tongue. "That is . . . the most humorous thing I have heard all day," he chuckles, his big hands disappearing out of my sight, probably to wipe tears from his eyes. His big left hand grabs my shoulder again. "You sorry son of a bitch, they really stirred your brains up, didn't they? Marsec Internal Security! I'll wager that they had you quacking like a duck, too. Ha ha ha ha-" He resumes laughing. I look to Nat. She shrugs her shoulders. "What?" I ask. "Poor bastard! Get him out of here! He's not dangerous!" Oscuro disappears into the haze, laughing loudly. His voice fades slowly . . . but after a half-minute it is only I and Nat remaining. I peek glance around with my eyes. Nat stares off into the smoke and then stands and stretches. Despite just having had numerous weapons waved in my face, more than a few by Nat herself, I peek over at her. Nothing; on top, she's built just like a boy. Her quick black eyes catch me watching her. She smiles, somewhat amused, and then saunters over to me. "Let's go, Peace," she purrs in her too-low voice--for a moment, I'm not entirely sure what she means by the statement. In fact, she reaches for my belt with her little hands. Pulling open the shirt over my belly, she returns my plasma pistol to its rightful place. A finger under my jaw bids me to stand up. We slowly walk back to La Paloma. It's been a long day, but thanks to my little stress overreaction back at the Purple Lotus, I'm rather well rested. I move easily, not tired in the least. The slum air is becoming as smooth as the pressurized air of the arcologies. Nat walks before me, her ponytail bouncing this way and that. There is an obscene amount of information I lack concerning why Oscuro didn't just blow my brains out back there and I still have no idea what was on that damned disk, but for now, I am content. Content that I'm breathing easier. Content that I still have my head. Wolf is still gone when we return to the car. Hap, however, sits reading by the light of the dash. Nat taps the side of the vehicle and Hap looks up. She smiles as he stows the thick, yellowed book. We climb in. "I live at Biafra Towers A," I say. Hap is mildly surprised to see that I too am back. He powers up La Paloma. "Are we going to wait for Wolf?" I ask. "He had to talk with Pedante," answers Hap. "I'll pick him up later." I grunt, spying the spine of his reading material. It's the King James version of the Bible. I peer up at the darkened side of the highrise before us. It's strangely appropriate in this sick Babylon. He pulls into the street. 2/21/98
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